Monday, June 25, 2012

(LOS ANGELES, 6/23/12) -- A Southern California interfaith coalition today expressed "deep shock and alarm" over the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles' decision to offer a platform to the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group.

Pamela Geller, who will deliver a lecture tomorrow on "Islamic Jew-Hatred: The Root Cause of the Failure to Achieve Peace," is co-founder of Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and author of a book offering step-by-step instructions on how to stop mosque construction in America.

"We are extremely shocked and alarmed to see a mainstream Jewish organization associating itself with one of the nation's leading Islamophobes who doesn't hesitate to share the podium with European racists and whose admirers apparently include Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik. Religious leaders and institutions have an increased and urgent responsibility to promote tolerance and mutual understanding among all Americans, instead of giving aid and comfort to fear-mongers like Geller. Imagine how hurt Jewish community members would be, and rightly so, if they discovered American Muslims hosting an anti-Semitic speaker."

Geller once bragged that she uses a Quran, Islam's holy text, as a doorstop. She also called for the demolition of a mosque in Florida, and she will be speaking along with the violent racist group English Defence League's Tommy Robinson at an international event later this summer.

SIOA is an outgrowth of a similar group in Europe that seeks to block the construction of mosques on that continent. Its sister organization, Stop the Islamization of Europe, "considers Islamophobia to be the height of common sense."

The United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant SIOA a trademark because: "The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease."

Geller has claimed that "Hitler and the Nazis were inspired by Islam" and that Islam "mandates" lies and deception.

She has also posted images on her blog that include a fake photograph of then-Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in a Nazi uniform, another fake image of President Barack Obama urinating on an American flag and drawings purporting to depict Islam's Prophet Muhammad as a pig.

One image posted by Geller, headlined "Piss Be Upon Him," showed one of the controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet covered in urine. ("Piss Be Upon Him" is designed to mock the traditional phrase "Peace Be Upon Him" that Muslims use when mentioning any prophet of God, including Abraham and Jesus.)